Some days, the Calgary Flames sit in the film room at the Saddledome and pore over the mistakes they made in their previous game.

Thursday was not one of those days.

The Flames know they weren’t perfect Tuesday night against the New Jersey Devils, but they also know that they scored nine goals.

Sometimes, you get to focus on the positives. And there were a whole lot of positives against the Devils.

“We watched a lot of positive clips today, I think that was nice for the boys,” said Flames captain Mark Giordano. “We executed really well on our goals, that was the focus today. We’ve got to keep that up. We know going forward we’ve got to clean up the chances-against and be a little tighter through the neutral and in our zone, and we’ll be good.”

Now, it’s worth noting that the Flames didn’t just watch the highlights that showed up on Sportscentre.

They did watch the finishing touches of the goals, of course, but what had the coaches in a good mood about Tuesday’s third period was as much what came before.

Whether it was a pass out of the defensive zone or a battle along the boards where the Flames came out top and were quick in transition, there was a lot to like about the six-goal third period.

And while there will be many more days where the team focuses-in on mistakes, the things a team does right are just as important as the things it does wrong.

If the Flames can replicate the way they played against the Devils in the coming weeks, they’re going to find themselves in a pretty sweet spot heading into the playoffs, so that’s where the focus was on Thursday morning.

“It was just all positive today, the clips,” said Flames winger Matthew Tkachuk. “(The coaches) basically showed all our goals from last night and (where they came) from. We did a lot of good things that led up to the goals. The two, three plays that led up to the goal . . . I think it’s important for us to realize we’re doing a lot of great things, not just scoring.

“There are some games where you put the puck in the net where it just goes in, but I don’t necessarily know if (the Devils) made a lot of mistakes . . . we just did a lot of good things.”

Head coach Bill Peters wanted to highlight some of the areas where the Flames were especially dangerous on Tuesday night, with their seventh goal standing out in particular.

On that goal, defenceman Rasmus Andersson picked the puck up in his own zone and then fired a pass through the neutral one to Sean Monahan, who took the puck at full-speed and burst over the blueline before feeding it to Johnny Gaudreau, who slid it into the back of the net.

It took about six seconds from the time Andersson first got the puck and circled in his own zone to the moment where the goal-lamp lit-up.

“That’s playing fast, that’s doing a good job right there,” Peters said. “That’s how we want to play coming down the stretch.”

Ultimately, there was a lot to like in Tuesday’s win, and that made for a fun day in the film room.

“When you score nine, it’s tough to come to the rink and not be positive, right?” said Flames winger Michael Frolik.

MISSING IN ACTION

There were fewer bodies on the ice than normal for the Flames at Thursday’s practice, but it sounds like the Flames should have all the usual suspects other than James Neal available for Friday’s game against the Rangers.

Forwards Mikael Backlund and Elias Lindholm were both given scheduled maintenance days Thursday, while goaltender Mike Smith didn’t skate because of an illness.

“They’ll be on the ice tomorrow, those guys who didn’t skate today will definitely be on the ice tomorrow and I anticipate they’ll play,” Peters said. “(Smith) was just sick, got a little under the weather and didn’t want it going around the room.”

NOT SCALING BACK

About two weeks ago, Peters spoke openly about wanting to scale back Giordano’s ice-time if possible.

The Flames have fallen behind the San Jose Sharks in the time since and now sit in second-place in the Pacific Division, so that might make it a little harder to give Giordano more rest.

More importantly, the Flames need to be jumping out to leads.

“You take (Tuesday night), you take that third period and put it in the first period and all of a sudden you have a lead and there’s your opportunity to shorten up minutes,” Peters explained. “But we’re trailing going into the third, that’s not an opportunity.

“We’re going to manage our team and coach our team to get our team ready for what we need to do moving forward but leads are beneficial more early than late.”

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